Nutrition is the Gateway Drug

The reason that I chose to pursue the health coaching path vs. the nutritionist one, is because living a healthy lifestyle is not all about food, it just starts with food.

When it comes to living a holistic and healthy lifestyle, nutrition is just one aspect of it, albeit it’s a huge one. When I start working with a client, we immediately address three aspects of physical health:

Sleep, nutrition, and physical activity.

This is the foundation that us as humans, need to begin to thrive. My goal is for improvement to these areas, to become yournew normal, and not something that you have to stress about on a daily basis.

For example, I get asked a lot about how I stay so disciplined when it comes to exercise. My honest answer is that I don’t even think about it. At this point (I played soccer since I was 4 years old, competitively all the way through college, and then started working in the fitness industry immediately upon graduation), the habit of being active in some way, every day is so engrained in me, it’s as automatic as brushing my teeth. I waste no energy battling with myself on whether to be active or not. The only decision making surrounds what will be the most FUN way to be active today, that also works with my schedule. Will it be a 60-minute walk, weight lifting solo, jumping into a group class, playing soccer, or doing CrossFit with a buddy? I should mention that when my body asks me to not be active (I’m sleep deprived, run down, coming down with something, injured, etc.), I listen, and do not feel guilty about it.

As is true with any habit, exercise or otherwise, habits become engrained as they are put into practice. It just takes reps. This is the work that my clients and I do together. We practice reps of new, healthy habits, in order to engrain them as part of their new lifestyle.

Once this foundation of physical health is laid, it frees up time and energy for everything else. A client once told me that now that he felt so good, he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. What an incredible problem to have, to have so much extra energy, that he didn’t know what to put it towards yet!

And that’s the moment when real transformation starts to happen. Energy and clarity come out of the woodwork, leading to self-discovery, and ultimately the ability to become more YOU.

What is most rewarding for me as a Health Coach is not seeing people lose weight, feel better, or even to watch their health markers improve. It’s facilitating the process of witnessing someone become their best and most authentic self.